The present invention relates to one-way radio paging receivers.
Generally speaking, known receivers of this type store radio messages in the chronological order in which they were received and re-constitute them in the same order or reverse order when the user of the receiver checks to see what messages have been received.
This approach to processing received radio messages is fine when receiving a relatively small number of messages requiring an immediate response by the user of the receiver but is not suitable for processing general information messages representing a large volume of data (for example sports information, weather forecasts, financial reports, etc.).
In order to process this general type of information, a known approach is to store the data received by the receiver in the form of a structured data base, which can be accessed by menus displayed on the screen of the receiver: this is the type of radio paging receiver to which the invention relates.
More specifically, the invention relates to a one-way radio paging receiver comprising:
receiving means for receiving radio messages,
an electronic central unit connected to at least one memory for processing and storing the radio messages received,
a control interface to enable a user to issue commands to the central unit,
and a screen for displaying the information resulting from the received messages, in accordance with instructions received from the user via the control interface, the memory having a tree-structured data base comprising a plurality of menu pages and text pages, the menu pages comprising at least one main menu page which is initially displayed on the screen by the central unit every time the user looks up data; each menu page comprising at least one heading which may be selected by the user via the control interface in order to display a different menu page or text page on the screen and the central unit being programmed to update the tree-structured data base in accordance with radio update messages.
Document U.S. Pat. No. 845,491 describes an example of a radio paging receiver of this type.
The specific objective of this invention is to lighten the process of updating the tree-structured data base in order to limit the volume of data transmitted with each update.
To this end, the invention proposes a radio paging receiver of the type in question, essentially characterised in that each menu page and each text page has an identification code, in that each heading of each menu page comprises on the one hand a data field which can be displayed and on the other a call code corresponding to the identification code of another menu page or text page, and in that the central unit is programmed to:
recognize at least certain radio messages, referred to as menu update messages, comprising a menu page identification code and at least one heading to be displayed on the menu page (already existing or new) containing this identification code, this heading including said displayable data field and said call code, if the menu page identification code contained in said menu update message corresponds to a menu page previously stored in the memory of the receiver, to store the menu data contained in the menu update message in place of the menu data corresponding to said menu page previously stored,
and if not, to store said menu data contained in the menu update message as a new menu page.
As a result of these features, the menu pages stored by the receiver can be easily modified by means of the menu update messages, which allows the structure of the tree-structured data base to be amended as required, on the basis of new general information transmitted to the receiver.
In preferred embodiments of the invention, one and/or the other of the following features may optionally be incorporated:
each menu update message comprises a full menu page and the central unit is programmed so that:
if the menu page identification code contained in said menu update message corresponds to a menu page previously stored in the memory of the receiver, the menu page transmitted in said menu update message is stored in place of said menu page previously stored,
and if not, the menu page transmitted in said menu update message is stored as a new menu page;
each menu page is sub-divided into fields and the menu data of each menu update message comprises at least one amended field as well as data for locating this amended field, the central unit being programmed so that:
if the menu page identification code contained in said menu update message corresponds to a menu page previously stored in the memory 14 of the receiver, only said amended field is stored, the other fields in the menu page being retained in the memory 14,
and if not, the menu data transmitted in said menu update message is stored as a new menu page;
the central unit is programmed to run a process to clean up the data base, consisting in:
determining if the memory contains a text page or a menu page other than the main menu page whose identification code does not appear in the headings of any menu page as a call code,
if such a menu or text page does exist, deleting it;
the central unit is programmed to reiterate the data base clean-up process until the memory no longer contains a redundant menu or text page,
the central unit is programmed to:
recognize at least certain radio messages, referred to as text update messages, comprising at least a text page identification code and a displayable text,
and if the text page identification code contained in said text update message corresponds to a text page previously stored in the memory of the receiver, to store the text page transmitted in said text update message in place of said previously stored text page,
and if not, to store the text page transmitted in said text update message as a new text page;
the text pages are sub-divided into fields and the central unit 11 is programmed to:
recognize at least certain radio messages, referred to as text update messages, comprising at least one text page identification code, at least one amended field belonging to this text page as well as data for locating this field in said text page,
if the text page identification code contained in said text update message corresponds to a text page previously stored in the memory 14 of the receiver, to store said amended field transmitted in said text update message and retain the other fields of the text page in said memory 14 of the receiver,
and if not, to store the text page transmitted in said text update message as a new text page,
the central unit is programmed so that when a menu page is displayed on the screen, the displayable data fields of menu page headings are displayed but not the call codes belonging to said headings.